I'd keep sending emails and see if there's a way to email Jason How directly. He's the Company President, and I'm sure he'll replace your strings.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Rotosound quality control complaint
- Thread starter 4001
- Start date
I'd keep sending emails and see if there's a way to email Jason How directly. He's the Company President, and I'm sure he'll replace your strings.
Thank you, I'd like to give them another try and hopefully if they did send me another set it would be a fresh set. But on my #1 bass, a Fender Jazz, 2 sets of their pure nickel roundwounds with one dead string in one set and 2 dead ones in the 2nd set, and one set of their monel Jazz bass flatwounds on my spare bass with one lifeless string, I just had to change brands since I couldn't afford that. And it's not the way I cut them, I do bend them to clamp the core in place. For now I switched to Fender pure nickel roundwounds for my Jazz bass and they all came sounding new, balanced, and just overall better, and for my spare bass, a modded Squier Jaguar that I mainly only use the precision pickup on, I took off the Roto flats and put on Fender flats and like them, might use Labella next time I change them. I will take your suggestion and email them though, as I'd like to give them a try, they sounded nice when they were alive.
THANK YOU! I emailed the USA sales division last time, about a month ago, and never heard back, but I took your suggestion and emailed Jason and he got back to me in literally 2 minutes saying he'd replace the strings no problem. I have to say I'm really impressed with that level of customer service and standing behind their products. So long as they come alive as they should I think they'll have another lifelong customer again! I was buying exclusively Rotosound since discovering them a little over a year ago and was going to be a lifelong customer until the 2 bad sets in a row came, then I used Fender pure nickels to replace the Swing bass pure nickels for the last 2 sets I bought just to be sure they'd be alive, but I'm hoping to switch back to Rotosound now if they get me a good set. Thanks a lot for your suggestion!
I've bought sets of 66's through Musician's Friend and there is always a few strings that are dead af. Not slightly dead but dead dead. they sounded like flats. I emailed Rotosound and they sent me a fresh pack but the A string was slightly dead. I've been buying them for 30 years so I know exactly how a new set is suppose to sound
This is why I don't even bother anymore with Rotos. I bought a pack in the mid 2000's and was disappointed. I bought a pack in 2014 and the E was completely dead with the A not far behind.
So after getting 2 replacement sets of strings from Rotosound after emailing them, I've tried the first set of the 2 they sent me, and damn, 2 dead strings fresh out of the pack! This time it's the E string and A string, the D and G sound like they should, which sucks cause each string sounds vastly different from one another. These were the Swing Bass 66 RS66LDN pure nickel roundwounds. I've switched back to Fender's pure nickel roundwounds (7150M I believe) because so far from every set of them I've got, each and every string sounds new and alive like any new string should, and all 4 strings in the set sound uniform to each other. I really, really hope Rotosound picks up their quality control some day, but for now I just can't afford to buy sets of strings that I have no way of being sure won't have duds in them. So far in the past year every single pack of Rotosound Swing Bass 66 pure nickels have had 1 or 2 duds in each and every pack I've installed, and I am installing them correctly. It's worth noting that in years past and still on my spare bass I've used their Roto Bass nickel plated steel Roundwounds and have never had an issue. But as far as pure nickel roundwounds, which are my preferred string material for my main (Jazz) bass, the Fender strings are far better than the Rotosounds, in terms of every single string sounding new, each string sounding the same as the other strings in the set, tone (even the Rotosounds which came out of the pack alive and sounding new didn't compare to the Fenders when new) and also how long they last, the Fender strings seem to last me 2-3 times as long before they get dull enough that I want to change them (I do change strings fairly often, I like the sound/feel of newer strings.)
Probably the whole batch the store received is defective if you got three deads in a row. I buy from bassstringsonline and the few times I ever have a problem with what I felt was a dead string, I notified Jason, and every time, an entire new set came right from the string manufacturer. That pretty much assures the replacement set is from a different batch.
I got them from Amazon at first, over the course of many months so I'm not sure if it's the same batch, and I kept giving them another chance and even got a set from a music store in Germany (who was selling on Amazon, but I usually buy them from Amazon themselves) and the German pack came with a different designed package that looked cool, same problem though. Then what really turned me off was after I emailed Jason and he sent me 2 replacement sets, and to be fair I have only tried 1 of those 2 sets he sent me, and that one had 2 dead strings in it. I was excited to get the new sets directly from Rotosound and thought for sure that coming fresh from Rotosound they would definitely be good strings. But I was wrong, and when they themselves send me 2 sets of strings to make up for countless packs of strings with deads, and the first set I open has 2 deads, it was frustrating to say the least. I went through the trouble of stringing up my bass only to find 2 strings sound dead, making the bass sound pretty crappy when playing using all the strings cause you hear an obvious difference from string to string. If Rotosound themselves can't send me 2 sets of strings with 4 good strings in each set, what's the use?
I really hate to say it, because they (especially Jason) seem very nice and seem to really care about standing behind their products and customers, but I just can't afford to buy dead strings. I hope they get better one day, if they do I'd love to switch back, but right now Fender's pure nickel roundwounds blow them away in every respect. I'm looking into what other brands are available that sell pure nickel roundwounds in 45-105 size that I can try that aren't crazy expensive. But at about $20 a set, the Fenders are about the same as the Rotosounds and have so far come with 4 fresh sounding strings in every pack I've got, they sound fresh for a lot longer as well, so they'll be my strings of choice for my #1 bass until something comes along and surprises me.
Fender pure nickel rounds? Not familiar with them. And if they do what the Roto 66's do, I'm all in!
Those are about as far from Rotos as you can get, they are about the darkest roundwound around
